Numerical investigation of roll convection stability

This study is devoted to the mathematical modeling of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a rectangular cavity with rigid boundaries. The stability of the roll motion induced by an initial disturbance of special form is studied on the basis of two-dimensional and three-dimensional calculations. Different patterns of flow restructuring with respect to the wavenumber are analyzed on the Rayleigh number range Ra = 1708–7000 for the Prandtl numbers Pr = 1 and 0.71.